weaponless whilst thou art in danger. [Listens.] I hear shouts and sword-strokes;—they are already at the hall. [Goes towards the right, but stops and recoils in astonishment.] Hiördis! Comes she hither! Hiördis enters, clad in a short scarlet kirtle, with gilded armour: helmet, hauberk, arm-plates, and greaves. Her hair is flying loose; at her back hangs a quiver, and at her belt a small shield. She has in her hand the bow strung with her hair.
Hiördis.
[Hastily looking behind her, as though in dread of something pursuing her, goes close up to Sigurd, seizes him by the arm, and whispers:] Sigurd, Sigurd, canst thou see it?
Sigurd.
What? Where?
Hiördis.
The wolf <g>there</g>—close behind me; it does not move; it glares at me with its two red eyes. It is my wraith,[1] Sigurd! Three times has it appeared to me; that bodes that I shall surely die to-night!
Sigurd.
Hiördis, Hiördis!
Hiördis.
It has sunk into the earth! Aye, aye, now it has warned me.
- ↑ The word "wraith" is here used in an obviously inexact sense; but the wraith seemed to be the nearest equivalent in English mythology to the Scandinavian "fylgie," an attendant spirit, often regarded as a sort of emanation from the person it accompanied, and sometimes (as in this case) typifying that person's moral attributes.
